When I was younger, I used to say I wanted to be a writer. I had notebooks full of characters with strange names, dramatic plots, and people who definitely spoke like no real human ever has. I imagined growing up would bring several manuscripts lying around, late night typing marathons and book signings where someone would say, “Your story was really amazing.”

But things rarely go as planned and it turned out that I now find myself spend my days writing… functional specifications. Instead of conflicted protagonists, I write about user roles; instead of plot twists, I document process flows and long emails that no one ever reads.

I find that when I’m creating a document, I often get so immersed in it that I don’t realise when I’ve forgotten meals, skipped breaks, or lost entire evenings. If I feel like something is off, I spend hours figuring out what’s wrong with the document and revising it until I’m satisfied. I can’t be done with it until everything is in the right place and it makes sense from start to end.

It’s not exactly the literary dream I had in mind – but I wonder if it still counts as writing, which doesn’t always have to look like novels or poetry. Maybe it can also look like translating people’s ideas and needs into a logical structure, and refining it until the team can build exactly what’s needed without 10 clarification calls.

And I guess it feels worth it when someone says, “This document really helped”. Maybe that’s not so different from “Your story was amazing” after all.

P.S. I’m pretty terrible at creating plots anyway.